Students switched-on to needs of industry after working on live advertising brief

Advertising and Promotion students at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) have impressed industry experts with their ideas for a live client brief.

The second years’ task was to come up with ideas to sell the Current Account Switch Service to 18- to 24-year-olds, considered a hard-to-reach audience.

They pitched to representatives of the client, the Current Account Switch Service, as well as marketing and communication specialists The Engine Group, who had provided the brief, at The Venue@DMU.

Lauren Robinson said the project has enhanced her presentation skills.

“My team’s idea was to run a #My7days to win a seven-day holiday, which links in with the Current Account Switch Service seven-day switch time,” said the Business and Management student. 

“We went with the idea of using Love Island, so we were planning to offer a million pounds to the reality TV show to campaign alongside them. 

“Listening to the feedback from the judges has helped me in the way I’d go about planning a campaign in the future."

Fellow Business and Management student Andrew Josty said the event had made him think about a career with an advertising agency.

“My team had an idea of seven small videos,” he said. “I think it was successful, they seemed to like our idea and it was fun. 

“I have definitely expanded on my presentation skills as well as how to handle my nerves and deal with feedback.”

RELATED NEWS

Ellen lands digital communications role after impressing on placement

Find out more about DMU's business and marketing courses at an Open Day

DMU grad Ollie lands Amazon management job

The Current Account Switch Service was launched in 2013 to simplify the switching process, having switched over four million bank and building society current accounts so far.

Associate Professor of the Student Experience Julia Cook, who runs the Advertising and Promotion module, said the opportunity to work on the live brief was thanks to former student Matt Ridsdale, now Digital Media Manager at Engine.

“Matt has enabled us to have this live client brief and get our students to work with the agency and the client, really bringing to life what we’ve been teaching them all through the year,” she said.

“The students have had direct feedback from the client and the agency, which has been very valuable. Now they can see how our client would interpret their ideas and maybe use them, or take some elements of it and build it into a bigger campaign.”

Rich Worrow, Creative Director at London-based Engine, thought it was good to see how people in the target age group would talk to their peers. 

He said: “We wanted to see what the students could come up with to find new ways of advertising to this group that traditionally don’t watch TV and don’t consume mass media."

The students did really well, said David Piper, Account Switching Services Manager, Bacs.

“I thought the ideas generated were absolutely fantastic,” he said.

“It’s great to see such creative thinking, and the students were backing up their ideas with good research and they had thought it through, they presented well, their slides were good and they came up with some new ideas.”